But when Warburton tried to imagine himself in such a position, a choked laugh of humourous disdain heaved his chest.
He wandered homewards in a dream.

He relived those moments on the Embankment at Chelsea, when his common sense, his reason, his true emotions, were defeated by an impulse now scarcely intelligible; he saw himself shot across Europe, like a parcel despatched by express; and all that fury and rush meaningless as buffoonery at a pantomime! Yet this was how the vast majority of men "fell in love"-- if ever they did so at all.

This was the prelude to marriages innumerable, marriages destined to be dull as ditchwater or sour as verjuice.

In love, forsooth! Rosamund at all events knew the value of that, and had saved him from his own infatuation.

He owed her a lifelong gratitude.
That evening he re-read a long letter from Jane which had reached him yesterday.